This analysis reports on the incidence of cancer within the Scottish Borders NHS health board. Data includes cancer incidence by cancer site and gender for the years 1994 - 2018 and can be found here.
Each cancer site is classified according to the ICD10 code, an alpha numeric code which corresponds to each type of cancer and where it is found in the body. The data set includes individual ICD codes as well as ICD code groupings. I have chosen to include the individual ICD codes where possible when identifying the most common cancer sites. For totals and aggregates, I have used the grouped ICD10 codes.
This analysis focuses on the total number of new cancer registrations, the crude rate per 100,000 person-years at risk as well as the standardised incidence ratio (SIR) of each cancer type. The EASR and WASR have not been included as this report focuses solely on admissions within the Borders health board, and is not to be used to compare cancer rates with other nations.
There are an average of 1082 cancer registrations per year.
The most common cancer admission (accross men and women) is Non-melanoma skin cancer, equaling 291 admissions per year, accounting for 27% of all registrations.
Of all cancer registrations, females accounted for 506 registrations per year, and males for 577 registrations.
The standardised incidence ratio (SIR) is used to determine if the occurrence of a certain type of cancer is higher or lower than expected, given the population and age distribution of the community.
If the SIR is greater than 100, it indicates that the cancer rate is higher than expected in that particular population. If the SIR is lower than 100, the cancer rate is lower than expected,
Care must be taken to interpret the SIR, as often the confidence limits can have a very large range. If the lower 95% CI is less than 100, and the upper is more than 100, it is possible that the true SIR does not deviate from 100 (is as expected). Furthermore there must be sufficient cases of cancer registered, and a sufficiently narrow confidence interval range for robust interpretation.
The criteria for selecting cancer sites with unexpected incidence are as follows: